Aichi Prefectural Police on the 14th announced the arrest of a 41 year old Buddhist priest in connection with an incident at a yakiniku restaurant in Toyohashi City the previous evening. It is alleged the priest attached a miniature camera to the underside of the water tank in the restaurant&s unisex toilet in order to take images of female customers using the eatery’s Japanese style squat toilet. An alert employee of the restaurant noticed the suspect repeatedly visiting the restroom and thinking it suspicious took it upon himself to examine the facilities, whereupon he discovered the hidden camera. The priest admits to the charges.

## 2

An unemployed 79 year old woman in Hyogo Prefecture has been placed under arrest on suspicion of unlawful disposition of a corpse. She is said to have left the body of her husband in her home between February 8th and March 13th. Police responded to the home after being contacted by neighbors who said they hadn’t seen the husband for quite a while. Officers entered the home around 3:30 the afternoon of the 13th and found the man dead in the living room. The 88 year old man’s body showed no signs of external injuries. The widow denies the charges, telling police that her husband is still alive.

## 3

In Okayama City a 42 year old woman, Kimura Kaori, has been arrested on suspicion of causing her ex-husband’s death in December of last year by hurling a kettle of boiling water on him. The attack took place at the suspect’s home on the evening of December 3rd. The 42 year old victim of the scalding died of his wounds in hospital two weeks later. Kimura admits to throwing the boiling water on her ex. Police are attempting to establish a motive.

## 4

Officials of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force have announced a 20 year old sailor has been disciplined for putting lewd notes into the mailbox of a woman he was attracted to. The sailor, stationed in Maizuru City, has been suspended for 10 days.

According to JMSDF officials, between June and September of 2017 the young man placed notes in the mailboxes of two women, both of whom lived in the same apartment building. He was arrested under suspicion of stalking in connection with notes left for one of the women and his case was deferred by prosecutors.

## 5

Aomori Prefectural Police and Kuroishi City Police will charge a 49 year old exterminator with professional negligence resulting in injury or death. The charges are in relation to an explosion at a Kuroishi elementary school the afternoon of September 18th, 2015. The explosion, which killed one adult and injured seven adults and children after 3 p.m. that afternoon when the exterminator lit a bug bomb to fumigate the 1.2 meter high crawl space beneath the floor of the school’s kitchen.

Police investigation after the blast revealed that LP pipes running beneath the kitchen showed signs of rust and decay. The crawl space had sustained heavy flooding twice in 2013 and 2014 when water drain pipes leaked into the area. The water was pumped out and the drain pipes repaired, but it is believed that the LP gas pipes were damaged while they were submerged in water and that leaked LP gas had built up in the crawl space.

Police looked into charges of neglect on the part of school maintenance staff for not discovering the damage to the LP gas pipes or the gas buildup, but as examination of the crawl spaces beneath the school are not a part of their normal maintenance procedures it was found impossible to build a case for professional neglect.

The husband of the part-time kitchen worker who died in the explosion expressed his satisfaction that investigation into the unfortunate incident but remarked that he can’t understand why the people in charge of maintenance aren’t being held accountable for not spotting the gas leak.

## 6

A third grade elementary school boy has been referred by Kanagawa Prefecture police to juvenile authorities in Osaka Prefecture after he was found to have created and distributed a computer virus. The 9 year old is said to have learned how to make the virus by watching online videos. Similar referrals were also made regarding a fourth grade student in Tokyo and a 5th grade student in Yamanashi Prefecture, both of whom downloaded the virus.

The youth said he just wanted to surprise his friends.

## 7

Unemployed 25 year old Nakamura Toshihiro of Osaka is going to have no trouble resisting his urges to grope women for the next 3 years and 2 months, as he will be spending that time in prison.

Nakamura’s has previously been imprisoned for groping and released on parole in September of 2016 and living in a halfway house when he was placed under arrest again for sexual assault charges the following month after fondling a high school girl and entering the home of two elementary school girls.

The sexual assaults are said to have taken place while he was returning to the halfway house from attending a course on preventing sex offenders from re-offending.

## 8

A 48 year old member of the Yamaguchi-Gumi Yakuza has been arrested in Osaka on charges of crashing a stolen Kei-truck into the shutter of a restaurant operated at the time by a rival faction of the gang in Kobe. The restaurant was closed at the time and no one was injured.

## 9

Japan’s National Police Agency reported on the 15th that there was a nearly 17% jump in the annual number of reported cases of revenge porn, With 1243 cases being brought to police attention in the last year. Surprising no one, in nearly 92% of cases the victims were female and about 80% were young, with those in their 20s outnumbering those in their 30s by more than two to one. The youngest were 11 year old elementary school 5th and 6th grade children.

## 10

The manager of a fishing tackle shop in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, grabbed the arm of a man who was attempting to shoplift a fishing pole valued at 32,000 yen. The would-be thief threatened the 53 year old manager with a knife and then made good his escape on a bicycle, leaving the fishing rod behind at the scene and also succeeding in upping his charges from shoplifting to armed robbery if the police get their hands on him. No one was injured in the 2 p.m. incident.

## 11

In our second report of surreptitious photographing of women in toilets today, we have a story of a 46 year old Osaka man who has been arrested on charges of trespassing into a ladies’ restroom in the building where he works and photographing women by holding his smartphone over the top of the stall door. He was arrested on suspicion of engaging in the activity on September 19 of last year and on the 6th of February this year. The man had been working in the building in Himeji City since 2007. His coworkers expressed their sincere regrets that it became necessary to arrest someone in the suspect’s position and said they are working with their superiors to ensure they handle the situation properly.

His coworkers, it should be said, are his fellow public prosecutors.

## 12

In more law enforcement lowbrow high-tech hijinks, three Hiroshima Prefecture police patrolmen have been disciplined for taking cell phone photos of a female subordinate they had ordered to strip naked at her home in December of 2017. In light of the fact that the photos weren’t shared online, officials treated the incident as a prank rather than a crime. Two of the officers had their pay reduced 10% for 6 months and the remaining officer had his pay similarly reduced for 3 months. The three, who ranged in age between 22 and 27 years old, have since resigned from the police force.

## 13

Officers assigned to police riot squads will soon be sporting a more modern look. Starting in April 2018, riot squad officers throughout the country will begin receiving what is the first redesign of their uniform in 62 years, their current uniform having been designed in 1956. There are plans to purchase 14,300 uniforms by the time of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.

## 14

Osaka police have referred charges of professional negligence resulting in death against 3 employees of a facility for handicapped children.

The three employees were busy bathing 26 children at once when they failed to notice that an 8 year old boy in the bathtub had drowned.

## 15

In more news from Hyogo Prefecture, Police in Nishinomiya have arrested a 56 year old man who walked into a Lawson’s convenience store at 7:40 a.m. the morning of the 15th and sucker punched the 19 year old clerk, yelling “This is a robbery. Give me the money!” He was nabbed at the scene and will be charged with attempted armed robbery.

## 16

52 year old Hokkaido fisherman Onishi Kazuhiko enjoyed a big night out on the town recently. It ended poorly in the predawn hours of March 14, though, when the catcher of fish was caught by the catchers of crooks.

At about 2:30 a.m. the Kei truck being driven by Onishi struck a taxi in Kushiro City, injuring the 60 year old cab driver. Onishi then fled the scene and was discovered about 30 minutes later at a location 2km away where he had started a fight. Officers responding to the scene soon placed him under arrest for various charges, including drunk driving, driving without a license, causing an injury, and leaving the scene of an accident.

## 17

At 7 o’clock the morning of the 15th in Fukui City a woman out for a walk reported to police that she had discovered a human skull on a slope about 250m from a library. Officers responding to the scene soon found the remainder of the skeletal remains. The area is popular with joggers and it isn’t known why they failed in their traditional duty of spotting human remains. Perhaps they thought it was the turn of people out walking their dogs.

## 18

Kobe seems to be a popular destination for deadbeats who don’t pay their taxi fares. Regular listeners may remember we earlier had a story of a man who ran up a huge tab riding from Nagoya to Kobe, despite having only 17 yen on him. This week we have a 35 year old man who took a taxi from Osaka to Kobe and ran up a 9,420 far which he had no intention of paying. Upon arriving in Kobe, the passenger instructed the driver to take him to Kobe’s Nada Police Station, saying that he had been arrested by them before and indicating his preference to favor them with his company again.

## 19

Remaining in Kobe for one more story, Police in that city on the 16th arrested a 30 year old man in connection with the stabbing death of his 57 year old father on March 16th.

At about half past seven that evening, police and fire officials received calls from the killer saying he had stabbed his father in the stomach multiple times at their home. The father was found sprawled on the floor of the kitchen of the apartment he shared with his two sons and he died at a hospital an hour later. Police who had initially arrested the man’s younger son on attempted murder charges switched the charges to murder and are attempting to discover the motive for the attack.

## 20

A 33 year old Tokyo adult video actress, Asou Nozomi, is being prosecuted on various drug related charges after marijuana and cocaine were found in her home, together with 56 grams of methamphetamine. The meth is said to have a street value of 3.6 million yen. In addition to the drugs, scales and other paraphernalia were also confiscated and officials believe she was involved in drug trafficking.

## 21

Two people are dead and one injured following an apartment fire in Tokushima City on March 15th. The fire is believed to have been started by elementary school children who lit some cardboard near the apartment’s stairs. One of the two children ran home immediately after the fire started and admitted his involvement to his parents.

Two residents of the 360 square meter apartment building died in the conflagration which completely consumed the structure and a 70 year old female resident suffered burns to both hands.

Police will refer the children to youth authorities.

## 22

A 22 year old American Marine stationed in Okinawa has been sentenced to one and a half years in prison, suspended for three years, for what must have seemed like a good idea at the time. The Marine used stage money to make purchases and pay taxi fares, giving fake $100 bills in payment and receiving Japanese currency as change. The charges stem from 5 separate incidents which took place in July of 2017, in which taxi drivers were deceived of a total of 35,000 yen and $90 and in which a convenience store was duped out of 9,900 yen given out in change.

## 23

Tokyo Metropolitan Police announced on the 19th that a female officer in her 20s would be disciplined by being suspended for 6 months after it was learned she had been dating a Yakuza member and providing him with information regarding police investigations.

It was subsequently announced that the officer, who worked in the Shinjuku Police Station, had resigned her position and that her case had been referred to prosecutors.

## 24

Kyoto cops have arrested an unemployed 27 year old man on charges of growing marijuana in his own apartment between October of 2017 and February 19th of 2018. The man’s budding agricultural ambitions drew the attention of police when he was earlier arrest on February 12th in possession of 7 ready-rolled joints. Investigation of his dwelling following that arrest turned up the 4 pot plants he was raising there. Police say he purchased the seeds online and researched marijuana growing methods on the internet. The suspect maintains that the marijuana was for his own personal use.

## 25

Another story of an apartment fire, this one on the 15th in Saitama City. A 70 year old man has been arrested on arson charges for deliberately setting fire to an occupied building, a company dormitory for unmarried workers. Approximately 50 square meters were damaged by the fire. Fortunately, there were no injuries.

## 26

In the third story of smuggling gold into Japan from Southeast Asia in the one month this podcast has been active, three women from Taiwan have been apprehended in Hakodate for attempting to sneak 10.5kg of gold into the country in their brassieres. See? This is why you don’t turn the podcast off halfway through.

The three women, aged between 20 and 47, each had two 1.75 lumps of gold measuring 11cm in diameter and fashioned into the shape of bra pads. The gold was discovered when a female Customs officer who patted them down thought their breasts were unusually firm. Maybe including a 47 year old in the plot wasn’t such a good idea.

The woman say they were promised 72,000 yen each to smuggle the gold into Japan.

## 27

A 48 year old Tokyo man is facing multiple charges of extorting and molesting children in Nara Prefecture. According to Nara Prefectural Police, his modus operandi was to deceive young girls into thinking he was private security at bookstores and had discovered them shoplifting. In one case, he is said to have secreted a 1,000 yen bill between books in the young girls’ section of a bookstore and then waited and watched for a girl to take the money and leave the story, after which he followed her outside and introduced himself to her as a plainclothes security guard to the 12 year old 6th grade elementary school girl. He asked her address and home phone number and then followed the girl to her home, where he put his arms around her and rubbed her back outside her front door.

In addition to that December 17th, 2017 incident, he is also being charged for a similar crime in February of 2018. Police are continuing their investigation to determine if there may have been other victims.

## 28

A 46 year old elementary school teacher is facing charges of child rape and child pornography. The Kyoto teacher is charged with having taken an 11 year old 5th grade girl to a hotel in Osaka on January 31, 2016, knowing that the girl was under the age of 13, and engaging in lewd acts and taking video of his crime. He is also facing trouble for a January 6th, 2018 visit to a Kyoto hotel with a 13 year old girl.

## 29

In what is becoming the theme of the this week’s crime news, Police in Hiroshima Prefecture have referred to prosecutors one of their own, a police inspector in his 50s who is charged with having used his cell phone to take sneak shots of a teenage girl on the street. Examination of his phone revealed similar shots of another girl. After facing internal discipline from the department the inspector resigned from the police force and is now awaiting further disposition of his case from prosecutors.

## 30

Just when you thought I was out of these, a 32 year old junior high school teacher in Osaka is in hot water with the law for surreptitiously filming in the girls’ restroom. The teacher is charged with trespassing for entering the girls’ room of the school’s gymnasium and leaving his cell phone there, recording video, where it was discovered.

The teacher admits that he was recording the goings-on in the girls’ toilet, but claims it was because he wanted to record audio of them gossiping and find out what they were saying.

## 31

A 43 year old former teacher in Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture is facing prosecution on charges of physically abusing the elementary school students in his care. He is charged with grabbing two 2nd grade student by the hair and smashing their faces into a blackboard and hitting a boy over the head with a ruler. He is said to have repeatedly physically abused 9 students, hitting their heads with a broom, pinching their faces, and in other ways engaged in unsanctioned contact.

The Prefectural Board of Education in February suspended the teacher for 6 months and he later resigned.

## 32

In our final story for this week, let’s get away from people abusing their positions of trust and authority and instead end with some good old-fashioned thievery.

A Shinto shrine in Nago Castle Park in Okinawa’s Nago City has for the last two years has repeatedly been the target of thieves who remove money from the offering collection box. Starting about 5 years ago, local officials spotted signs that people had tried breaking the lock off the collection box and began double locking and even welding the box shut after each time they removed the accumulated cash.

The shrine is mostly targeted after New Years and the school entrance examination season, during which times it receives greater numbers of visitors and thus greater donations. Robberies during these times can net the thieves an estimated 200,000 yen and officials make an effort to get around to the shrine two or three times a week to collect the cash before bandits have a chance to make off with it. They have filed multiple police reports with the local Nago Police Department buy have yet to hear back from them of any progress in the case. The area around the shrine is said to be largely devoid of people outside of the New Years and school examination seasons.

The collection box has already been broken into once this year, with a welded lock being broken off the box and the money stolen.

An official lamented, “The money from the collections is supposed to go for the upkeep of the shrine, but it costs so much to get somebody out here to do welding that we’re essentially just using all the collection money to buy new locks and pay for welding every time we open the box”.

Even leaving out at least a third of the current crime related news stories collected over the last week, we still ended up with the longest news roundup so far. I’m starting to think in the interest of brevity I might have to start collecting tales of misbehaving teachers and police officers into their own separate weekly or monthly crime report. There are so many of them…and they do deserve covering…that they crowd out the regular criminals. What do you think? Let me know via Twitter @hanzaipodcast or via e-mail hanzaipodcast@gmail.com

Also, starting from this news report the Hanzai Podcast is moving from SoundCloud to being hosted on BLubrry instead. You may find the show at hanzai.blubrry.net. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll talk to you again soon.